from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Americans reportedly eat, on average, more than 18 pounds of bacon each year. This unhealthy obsession with bacon apparently began in the 1990s when the high-protein, high-fat, low-carb Atkins Diet started gaining popularity. Now there are tons of bacon-inspired products available to the bacon lover, such as bacon ice cream, chocolate-dipped bacon, bacon doughnuts, bacon candy, bacon soap, bacon toothpaste, and bacon air freshener. Here are a few more examples.

from the just-what-we-didn't-need dept

Most patent infringement lawsuits you hear about involve utility patents, but every once in a while we hear about cases involving design patents, which are about the ornamental design of a product, rather than the process or method. However, most IP attorneys are always quick to point out how weak design patents really are (which is why you rarely see them pop up in litigation). However, that may have just changed. CAFC (the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, who handles all patent related issues) has released a unanimous ruling that lowers the standard for infringement of a design patent from the "point of novelty" test that the court has used for almost 25 years (which required that any design patent actually have something novel) to a "ordinary observer" test -- where infringement will be deemed to occur if an "ordinary observer" would think the designs are the same. It's difficult to understand why the courts wouldn't keep a novelty requirement, considering the very purpose of the patent system, but we've been confused by CAFC rulings on a regular basis for years, now. Anyway, you can now expect more lawsuits over design patents and perhaps a few more questions about why we need design patents when trademarks already exist.

from the just-not-worth-the-hassle dept

Lately, whenever we post about eBay, a huge crowd of folks shows up to complain about eBay. Many of the changes that eBay has implemented over the past few years haven't gone over well -- but a Business Week article suggests something else is up also: buyers just aren't interested in the "auction" model as much as they used to be. Personally, I know that's true for me. I remember bidding on a variety of auctions on eBay, but I doubt I've done so in at least five years -- mostly because I can find whatever I'm looking for a decent price and just buy it elsewhere, without the hassle of the auction. When it first came along, the auction process was novel and fun -- and it offered up products that just couldn't be found elsewhere. But, these days, that's very rarely the case. The auction process seems like a pain and most of the products are available in a more convenient manner.

That certainly doesn't mean the end of eBay, or even the end of auctions (as Mathew Ingram notes, auctions are good for a certain class of products). And, as the original article notes, eBay's business has been shifting increasingly to fixed-price sales rather than auctions. But many people still do think of eBay as an auction site, and its biggest near-term challenge may be convincing people that it's more than that.